A technique for reacting peroxide with propylene in the presence of a Ti (titanium)-MWW catalyst to produce propylene oxide is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-327581. However, the catalyst has had a problem in view of catalyst costs due to long and complicated processes to produce it.
The horizontal axis of FIGS. 1 and 2 denotes angle of diffraction 2θ (°), and the vertical axis denotes intensity (cps: count per second).
According to the present invention, propylene oxide can be produced by using a catalyst for producing propylene oxide, which catalyst is excellent in that it can be prepared at inexpensive costs without requiring more complicated processes.
That is, the present invention relates to a method for producing propylene oxide, characterized in that peroxide is reacted with propylene in the presence of a titanosilicate catalyst which has an X-ray diffraction pattern as indicated below and is represented by the formula.xTiO2·(1−x)SiO2     wherein x denotes a numerical value of 0.0001 to 0.1.    Said X-ray diffraction patterns    (interplanar spacing of lattice d/Å)    13.2±0.6    12.3±0.3    11.0±0.3    9.0±0.3    6.8±0.3    3.9±0.2    3.5±0.1    3.4±0.1